The Grimm Experiment
by Delumbra
Summary: Dr. Batchelder is one of many scientists heading a frontier genetics project. The pay is incredible, but can the Doctor hold it together long enough to retire under the stress of incompetent management, unethical experimentation, and a project that fails on all levels? A look at many RWBY (And non-RWBY... But mostly RWBY) OC and story cliches and inconsistencies.
1. Dr Batchelder

Peals of lightning split the village's sky, casting stuttered silhouettes twisted by the deluge. No one was awake at the late hour besides a pair of men in heavy cloaks, hatching plans under the glow of a solitary street lamp.

"Why are we doing this?" I had to yell to my partner to be heard about the drum of the rain, "People would volunteer for this, why do we have to kidnap someone?"

Dr. Gunther-Hagen opened his mouth to speak, but discovered that he didn't know the answer. By all accounts, the whole concept seemed pretty flawed.  
"Because the boss said so, Batchelder"

I didn't really expect an answer anyway. I grit my teeth, then gave a slight nod. We picked a house near the edge of the village so the getaway would be easier, but every other aspect of the plan was so slapdash it may as well have been put together by a child. That seemed good enough, though.

Dr. GH picked the lock on the house while I stood guard just outside. The house was quiet, and didn't even give so much as a creak to alert the homeowners of the Doctor's presence. Spotting the child's room was easy too, with the door half-cracked and and the dim flare of a night light in the corner. The boy didn't manage to make any noises that couldn't be drowned out by the roar of the weather against the roof, an ether-soaked rag made sure of it.

Everything went off without a hitch, and within a few hours we were back at base with everyone else. The child we'd retrieved and dozens of others from the far corners of Remnant had been loaded into cells, and their video feeds were displayed on monitors all over the control room. Most had awoken, and were now crying underneath their small beds. A few had already moved on from that, and had begun attacking the doors with everything they had, verbally and physically. It was disturbing to see, but not surprising. From the beginning, it was all about a rich idiot with too much Lien who couldn't think of a way to get rid of it fast enough. There was no science involved, just a bunch of scien _tists_ to make it seem legit.

But even being constantly subjected to the torment of children was better than the first few weeks of the project. Everyone brought their concerns to management after the project briefing, every single person, and most were met with the same results:

"This is genetic experimentation, we need fetal test subjects or eggs, even babies are already too old for this to work", they ignored him.

"What's the point of this? Grimm don't have special powers or strengths to begin with, so what are we hoping to gain with these experiments?" They ignored him too.

"Wouldn't a Grimm hybrid's advantages, if any, be dwarfed by the disadvantages? Aura is our greatest weapon against the Grimm, why would we compromi"- That guy was dragged out of the office and fired.

"How are we supposed to do this anyway, when Grimm evaporate right after they die? There's no way to get any sort of sample", they gave him a raise, which was probably just luck of the draw- Monkeys with typewriters and all that. Management was bound to make a stupid decision at least in our favor eventually.

So as horrible as it was, we'd all been desensitized a long time ago. At first the pay was just too good to ignore even for a job that consisted of a madman's ravings. Now nothing remained of our past selves but a quiet mental itch that hadn't yet succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome, our only hope of returning to our normal lives after we'd finished the job and retired.  
But for now, we had to keep up the show, do our experiments, and file paperwork properly. The boss wouldn't have a clue, but after the experiments inevitably turned up nothing, he'd probably hire a separate bunch of people to double-check our work for him.

 _Day one; 4:46 AM- All Subjects have arrived. We're giving them a short time to become acclimatized before beginning experiments._

I stopped there. I wasn't usually a "bare minimum" kind of guy, but this was a bare minimum kind of job, and after the long night I just wanted to beat the rush for some food. I dropped the log file onto the server before going off to find some breakfast in the lab's cafeteria. I ordered a whole pepperoni pizza. It was in the middle of my third slice when I truly realized just how crazy this job was making me.


	2. 30

It was the second day of the project's experiments, and the first day that we actually conducted any experiments. Of course we didn't even have a clue what experiments to do until some raised the idea of just covering as broad a scope as possible so our bosses wouldn't be able to think we didn't try everything.

We settled on taking blood samples from all the children since it was pretty non-invasive, and it would give us a chance to reassure them of their safety and give them lollipops. I have to say, that was probably the only good idea anyone's had within a mile of the project. All the kids were still visibly distraught, but they weren't screaming or crying anymore. It went over so well, we decided to come up with a cover story to tell the kids so they wouldn't worry at all anymore, and might even cooperate with us willingly. A couple of the guys set to work on that while the rest of us started sequencing and replicating the blood samples we took.  
On closer inspection, I saw that the only good decisions continued to be made by us. The subjects were widely varied, genetically and geographically. Half of them Faunus, half Human, Half Male, Half Female, and a pair of identical twins for each major genetic group. Not that there was any chance of positive results, but if there was, we've definitely set ourselves up to find them.

Finding that nothingness was an issue for another day though. For now, I sat at my computer and watched as the results of the sequencing came through. I'd always thought genetics was interesting, being able to see so many features and markers. Subject #9 had a high risk for diabetes, #17 was Human but probably had a Faunus great-grandparent, #23 was found in Atlas but had a Vacuo lineage. Some geneticists tended to get a little full of themselves, stuck on the idea they were looking at a person's very being; their essence. I didn't kid myself into thinking I was looking at anything more than physical features and some probabilities.

Under normal circumstances my fascination probably would have cut itself short when I was going over #30's results, but here it was good news. She was lactose-intolerant, a high-risk for celiac disease, and also suffered from cystic fibrosis and haemophilia. The haemophilia should have been obvious right away when we were taking blood, but it was dismissed as a result of her not keeping still. She was in for a difficult life and I really felt for her, but at least it meant we couldn't keep her on.

I ran right to the group in the corner still trying to figure out a cover story, but they didn't have a good one yet. #30 would unfortunately have to wait until at least tomorrow to get home. I hoped that would be soon enough, but I knew it wasn't. If I could get her home right that second it wouldn't be soon enough.

I didn't tell anyone about what I'd found. I was afraid someone might try to score some points with management by finding a suitable replacement subject. The longer I waited, the less viable the idea of replacing #30 would be. I could spare another kid from our pointless experiments if I risked getting a talking-to by not warning anyone early.

My log was much longer this time. I had to write a detailed account of each subject's sequencing results, everything that might be pertinent. I saved #30's for last.

 _Day 2; 4:48 PM- … #30 presents us with an unsuitable subject. Her many health concerns and risks require unreasonable long-term considerations. Release is necessary._

I refrained from dropping the file and genetic results onto the server. A fairly minor oversight, but a necessary one in order to guarantee her release, and save another from capture entirely. If anyone cared or was smart enough to discipline me for my clerical failures today, it wouldn't be any more than a slap on the wrist. Worth it.

I stopped at the cafeteria again before I left for home. I ordered more pizza, a very different, unusual kind this time. They gave me some heck but said it would be half an hour to make it, and I waited, but I didn't stop to eat it when it was done. A gluten-free, low-lactose cheese pepperoni pizza was a small consolation for being stolen from your home and family, but it was all I could offer, even if it did get a little squished when I shoved it into the food slot on #30's cell.


	3. I Wish I Could Take A Picture For You

Some kiss-ass looking for a pat on the back got all over me about missing my report almost as soon as I got in, so I played dumb and fixed it quick. Of course he went over it right away to ensure everything was in order, and gave me one hell of a mean look when he finished. I pretended not to notice.

When everyone was in, we had a short meeting about our cover story. We'd try tell the kids they were under quarantine and study after contracting a virus, they were carriers so they wouldn't suffer from any symptoms, yada yada. The parents would be notified right away, and the lateness would be explained as a clerical/logistical error. The kidnappings were too widespread and quiet for anyone to tie them together, so everyone's story could be tweaked as-needed to fit into the basic framework, we didn't need to worry about making a single story fit everyone. The others who were on the cover story team were already explaining it to the kids.

I ran right over to the cells when the meeting was over, and caught one of them on their way out. I pointed them to my report, and they notified who they needed to. That little girl was on her way out of the lab within a couple hours, and most of the other scientists agreed to swallow the loss of a test subject.

But now was the day that our experiments really began. As one subject left us, we had another shipped in. A caged, infantile boarbatusk found its way into our little lab. We had a couple weeks until we risked not being able to contain it any more. I can't deny that in some small way that made sense of the expedient, "Throw Grimm and children at the wall to see what sticks" methods, but our time limit was still so short.

Dr. Gunther-Hagen was actually the first to get a crack at the creature, with a small medical team behind him, and he just tried the obvious first. Using a specially-made syringe through the cage's bars, he tried to take a sample of the Grimm cells. The creature's tissue sublimated almost instantly, and he ended up with a tube full of gas. He set it aside and took a small balloon-like object, and wrapped it around its tusk. The balloon inflated, briefly creating a small, vacuum-sealed environment wherein the doctor grabbed a scalpel delicately scraped off samples of the tusks' substance into a few dishes, then capped and clamped them shut before too much of their gases escaped. No one expected real success, but maybe we could uncover something new with our frontline technology that was missed in earlier Grimm experiments. Not anything that would help in creating a Grimm hybridized Human, of course, but something that could help in Humanity's war against the Grimm in general.

We ran the various gases through our mass spectrometer, but the results were thoroughly disappointing. The tusk had all the elements that composed typical ivory, and the tissue sample followed suit. Of course we had no way of knowing how the elements were structured, or even how these materials suddenly dissociated and became gaseous. These early test proved nothing.

The supernatural experimentation group had the Grimm next. They took their own samples, and tried injecting them directly into a number of lab animals- mice, rabbits, monkeys, even a normal boar. That did fuck all but kill the animals, just like injecting gas into the bloodstream usually does. Their group, tasked with investigating the "supernatural" aspects of Grimm, was doing even less science than we were, but damn it if they weren't having a lot more fun.  
They tried other methods that were just as insane, too. They severed the boar's leg, then restrained the Grimm while they cut off one of its own, and tried to attach the boar's leg to the stump. The two made no connection of any sort, not even rejection. We may as well have given him a peg leg, I joked.

 _Day 3; 3:32 PM- Someone took me too seriously, and our pet Grimm has earned the nickname "Peggy". All preliminary Grimm experiments have yielded no new results. Experiment files and records attached._


	4. Alternatives

I had an interesting thought last night. Did you ever see that movie with Jack Black called "Envy"? I hope not because it's absolutely awful, but it reminded me a lot of my situation. It's about these two characters, one very grounded, and the other who comes up with all these crackpot get-rich-quick ideas. The one guy is just an ideas guy, he has no real practical knowledge about anything, he just constantly thinks of with these hare-brained products, calling the other guy to talk about them. Like a child, almost, one of those inquisitive but not-too-bright children that asks stuff like "Why don't they just make crime illegal?", or "Why don't we just build homes for homeless people?", and thinks he's solved all the world's problems. They're those kind of ideas, and I was a world-class scientist hired to work on one.

The Supernatural group was at Peggy all night. In fact, they got the bright idea to amputate the rest of her legs too so they wouldn't have to restrain her quite so much. Have you ever seen the ancient enemy of Humanity sporting four peg legs? It's goddamn hilarious.

I think one of them was starting to go a little crazy, just like I was. I saw him wheel over to Peggy with a syringe, jam it into her, pull the plunger, then quickly slide over to a lab animal on a nearby table. At that point he noticed that the syringe was full of gas, yelled "Shit!", and went back over to Peggy to get another sample. I watched him go through that same cycle four times before getting bored. One of the other scientists said he'd been watching for an hour, running experiments of his own. He theorized there was a correlation between the length of each cycle and the ambient air temperature in the room, and was playing with the thermostat while working on his formulas. I suppose I was just the first to break.

Gunther-Hagen snuck up behind me, and watched the fool go through his routine a few times himself. He dragged me along to the cafeteria, saying he skipped breakfast.

Our conversations were one of the few things keeping me from going any more insane. He seemed so happy, so unbroken, meanwhile I went on about my theory that I was living in a rehashed, terrible Jack Black film.  
"I know what you mean, I had that same feeling for a while too"

"Had?" I asked, bewildered, "How are you so okay with all of this?"

He laughed, "I got to thinking it's more like that Bill Curry movie, 'Groundhog Day'".

I didn't follow, but he piqued my curiosity.  
"Think about it. Those guys from the supernatural division are just screwing around, and that's okay. You could do that too if you wanted. We have all the resources in the world, and no consequences."

I thought for a moment. He was right too, but I wasn't exactly sure what I could do with this new information. Dr. GH must have noticed because he left me with the words "Now if you'll excuse me, we've got a peg-legged boarbatusk and his photos haven't yet been sold online"

That didn't really give me any ideas, or answer my unasked question either. He was in the procedural group, I was on analysis and supervision. He could do stuff like that, he could shove his hand up the Grimm's ass and use it as a hand puppet if he wanted. As long as the creature survived until that first deadline, it really didn't matter what he did or how he did it. I suppose I could probably get away that too even if I was in a different division, but it just didn't suit my tastes. How could I take advantage of my situation?

I couldn't do anything with the kids. We still technically needed them, even if our experiments would and could never progress to human experimentation phases. I'd love to take them out sometime, even just hang out with them, but they did already have caretakers. Truthfully I didn't even like kids, but I sympathized with them all the same. If I was stolen away from my home as a child, I'd have conjured all manner of ridiculous stories to explain it all away, and terrify myself unintentionally.

… _Could that be an option?_ I thought. It gave me an idea, since this whole project may as well be headed and invented by children. In fact the project could only be expected to work in the world of bad fanfiction. Maybe I could find an answer there.

I snuck off to the bathroom and sat in the stall while I looked up some of that bad fanfiction on my scroll. I didn't have any experience in this world largely composed of teen angst, but it became immediately apparent that the "secret lab experiment" cliche was really big. I couldn't bring myself to actually read any of the stories, but the synopses made it abundantly clear exactly which aspects of reality were being ignored.

It was genuinely surprising just how much and how varied the stories were, even though I was only looking at the one cliche. Most of them split off into other other cliched plotlines, some devolved into premises so thoughtless that they could never become cliche, and very few tried anything unique, or in a unique way. I had to wonder if all fanfiction was like this.

But a few of the ideas seemed…. Fun. No less impossible than our current task, but they could be valuable side-projects. It would add some legitimacy if we ruled out a couple of these other ideas while we stalled for the next few weeks on the Grimm experiment. For all I knew, they'd set us right to work on these thoughtless experiments once this one reached its disappointing conclusion. They could pull some legal or blackmail bullshit and choose not to release us from our contracts for years, until we'd gone over every stupid idea under the sun. Best-case scenario, one of them actually works out and I become a hero.

I sauntered back over to my desk, and started on the day's paperwork, my mind abuzz with potential idiocy to put to the test. It almost felt like I was on autopilot, detached from my actions while my inner world returned to life. Before I knew it, the day was over. In fact, without noticing, I'd stayed longer than I'd intended. I took out my scroll and jotted down all the ideas I could find on my notepad before writing a short log for the day.

 _Day 4; 5:34 PM- All experiments have yielded no results, nor opportunity or idea for meaningful advancement (Records and files attached). As expected, there is no progress whatsoever. Until new courses of action present themselves, I think it prudent to devote a portion of this project's unused resources to alternative goals_.


	5. Talking to Your Scientists About SEX

The **S** upernatural **Ex** perimentation division, or SEX as they demanded to be called as soon as they saw me, were at it again when I got in. It was the first round of Dust experiments, what actually amounted to spending the day sprinkling various types of Dust over Peggy. That must be at least a scientific notch or two above sticking severed body parts together and seeing what will happen, right?

Either way, even they were bored with it. They couldn't try any invasive experiments yet, not until Peggy was nearing the end of her time in our lab. That's how they found the time to notify me of their acronym, and ask that I distribute a memo to alert everyone else. I took the more interesting route and made the memo into a short pamphlet entitled "Talking to your scientists about SEX".

After laying those out on the desks and pinning a couple to the bulletin board, I went right to my own desk to take a look at the notes I'd made. They were all terrible. Wonderfully, gloriously terrible. Each was a round-trip on an all-expenses-paid mini-vacation. It didn't matter where they might lead me, they only had to waste some time, and first on the list…. Avian Faunus. That was actually just an error on my part, what it really meant was winged Faunus- specifically ones that could fly. An easy concept to refute.

Firstly, It was based on other material. There wasn't really any consideration given to the logic of Humans with wings on their backs. The premise worked fine for the Supernatural, but the natural? Faunus all have an animal trait, and I don't know of any birds with wings on their backs, do you? Some of the crappy fanfiction even tried to pull it with bats, _bats._ With birds at least the mistake made sense; it can be unusual to think of wings as limbs, but bats have goddamn hands at their end of their wings. Why on Remnant would a bat, or any other avian Faunus' wings be on their back? If the slightest bit of thought was put into the idea, the wings would at least be along the arms, just like a bat's.

Secondly, it takes more than simple wings to fly. If it didn't, I wouldn't have broken my leg when I was seven years old and jumped off the roof with cardboard taped to my arms. It would take a _lot_ of physiological changes for a Human to be capable of flight. It's not necessarily impossible… But far beyond a simple Faunus trait. The Faunus girl who sat in front of me in third grade got a tail that wagged when she was excited, and some funky-looking eyes. This hypothetical flying Faunus gets numerous, fundamental changes to their entire body's structure and function. Who could think those two sets of traits are on the same level in any way? Why not just google it? Winged Faunus do exist, but none that can fly.

It was a pretty damning argument against flying Faunus… But I hadn't found anything that truly rejected the idea altogether. I'd just found a whole lot of reasons why everyone that attempted it did it wrong. The wings would logically be arm-based rather than on the back, and they couldn't be a product of natural Faunus birth. Theoretically, the second point actually made the first moot. Since they couldn't be natural, they'd have to be engineered... And in that case you could just put the wings on their back. We probably had the materials in the lab here to make a "Faunus" like this ourselves. The DNA of a Faunus with vestigial wings would actually be a great starting point, it could leap the project ahead years from where we'd be starting from scratch. With a few changes to the formula, I had to admit, we could actually bring some bad fanfiction to life. It was a staggering prospect sure to bring thousands of prepubescent ladyboners to life if they just read that headline.

For just a moment, I had a quiet little daydream. I saw myself on TV, on that myth show. The one with the crazy guy and the bereted walrus Faunus who tested all kinds of crazy ideas together. I'd only caught a couple episodes, but it seemed like a cool show.

Then I had to stop and ask myself if it would be worth it. What actual advantages or disadvantages would a flying Faunus have? Flight, obviously, actual flight. Wings aren't exactly conducive to hovering, so any sort of indoor use is totally out of the question. They couldn't wear any but the lightest of armor. The wings would actually make them a much bigger target, too… I wasn't finding much in the way of pros, but plenty of cons. Even fighting midair would be an issue. Marksmanship would be impossible, although I couldn't figure out for sure if automatic fire would have enough recoil to interfere with the flight, so I just put that under "Maybe". Melee fighting might not necessarily be impossible, but it would be very difficult, risky, and would mean moving very predictably. It would be a simple matter to shoot the flier out of the sky while he made his dive, or impale them on a weapon, or just move out of the way. Most of that would remain true even for back-based wings. The only combat applications are probably for first strikes or retreat. The only other applications are for simple travel, where it really would shine I had to admit. If I could cross the kingdom in a few minutes without spending a cent, that would be pretty awesome.

In the end, I decided to mark it as plausible on my notepad, but worthless, and I didn't think any further explanation would be needed. It was head and shoulders above the idea of a Grimm hybrid, but misguided. Driven not by thinking the concepts through, but by wishful thinking and other sources, sources where wishful thinking, and other inspirations were also higher on the priority list. I wouldn't even necessarily say that was a bad thing, just that the fanfiction writers got a bit ahead of themselves. Perhaps I was finding a bit of a burgeoning writing critic in myself, because I didn't see why someone couldn't do what they want, and also have it make sense. A lot of people would probably say I was overthinking it, but I was just thinking it. The ideas fell apart at thought #1, so even #2 would be overthinking it. Why did this fanfiction writer I was inventing in my head seem to reject the idea of a concept that was thought out, and implemented carefully instead of a bunch of slapdash "Just because"? It's not even like one path was inherently better quality. Both can be good, but one way can be good and also make sense.

I must have gotten a little lost in my little internal dialogues again, because I ended up clocking out a little late for the second day in a row. I went to check on Peggy, but there was nothing new. SEX had gone through the entire Dust rainbow, and I tell you, that Boarbatusk looked like she'd been in the middle of a pixie orgy.

 _Day 5; 5:46 PM - No progress. My personal investigations into side-projects have also begun without a worthy goal._


	6. A Little Science

They said Peggy got her first armor plates in overnight, and broke from her restraints. No one was hurt, due in no small part to her having no legs, but SEX's experiments were halted for most of the morning while they recaptured the violently wriggling creature and cleaned up. They didn't look too disappointed, since they'd almost run out of ideas. They were so desperate they decided to go a little more scientific and ask some of the chemists for help. They'd be spending to next day or two testing various raw chemicals and elements on her in the effort to discover the Grimm's exact chemical makeup.

I still had nothing to do but supervise… So I went right back to my list and picked item #2, let's see… Half-Faunus. Another poorly-worded topic, my fault. Of course Humans and Faunus can interbreed, there's no discussion there. Some of the scientists here were of mixed lineage, even.

But none of them were foolish enough to try to claim a "Half-Faunus" title, it was redundant. You either have an animal trait or you don't, there is no halfway point. Some people had tried to compare it to races, but there's a spectrum there, a gradient. The child of a couple with different skin tones can be anywhere between the two, but again, there's no halfway point to Faunus. If you had no animal trait and tried claiming Half-Faunus, you'd get looked at like an idiot, because you are, just the same as if you did have one. Do you think the White Fang would look any different upon either a Human or Faunus if they were only halfbloods?

It would make more sense if Faunus were something more different from Humans, but… Faunus are just Humans with a physical animal trait. There's one, single thing setting us apart. Some have minor additional traits, but Faunus genetics don't work like that. It wouldn't be possible to get one trait, like night vision is a famous one, but not the major trait. It's all or nothing.

… Hm. That was a pretty short subject, I had to admit. I didn't even have to do any research. In fact I'm pretty sure this one isn't even worth noting. It was an okay way to waste a couple minutes, but maybe I was already starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for testable ideas. I checked the next one… Which was definitely a lot better.

I went to check out how things were going around the lab first, though. I had to do at least a little supervision to make it look like I was doing something. The containment unit was still working on Peggy, so SEX and the chemists were just hanging out in the employee lounge. The children and their caretakers were all good, and the Applied Science team was getting so bored that they started a pottery class in the bathrooms. It all looked good to me, or at least as good as anything could be in this multimillion dollar waste of time.

So…. Omni-weapons, was it? Fictional Hunters seemed to get these pretty often, one weapon that can transform into dozens, or hundreds, or any at all. I took a bit of physics in school, and I actually designed a couple transforming weapon mechanisms for a project, so I knew a fair bit about this one, and I suppose it made some sense on some level. If you've ever seen one of the more complex Hunter weapons, it's easy to be mesmerized. Some film franchises like that one with the robots that transformed into cars actually demonstrated this idea very well. Of course it would be an impossibly tall order to actually design and animate something like that, so what actually happens is that the robots turn into a metallic, fractal-ey mess in the transforming periods. It's so you get mesmerized and your brain can't even begin to process what's actually going on, then they don't have to actually design the robots and mechanisms. They don't change from cars to robots, they go from cars, to fractal messes, to robots.

I believe that people were thinking of weapons the same way. Many are still mesmerizing and difficult to keep track of even though their transformations obviously do work, mechanically. People therefore fail to notice that the weapons are made of real, physical moving parts. There's just no way to make a weapon that has that many transformations. I've seen some pretty ridiculous ones, and I think the most I've ever seen for one weapon is five forms. I've seen a couple that technically have more, up to ten I believe... But those weapons were more modular than anything, required a lot of manual work to assemble and rearrange, and a lot of the forms were just slight variations of one another. Some of these weapons I read about claimed to have _hundreds_ of forms, which was BS on so many levels.  
Firstly, the weapon itself would take a lifetime to build, given all the research and analysis that would have to go into it.

Secondly, the weapon would be largely redundant. There aren't that many meaningfully different weapons in the entire world. If you actually wanted to give it hundreds of forms, most of them would be multiples of the same weapon, with slight variations. Not even worth the effort at that point, so for the purposes of my research, I'll be assuming the reasonable (but still not realistic) number of transformations to be twenty from this point on

Thirdly, it just wouldn't be effective. Most Hunters make do with 2-4 weapons/transformations, so one who has 20 would be only 10-20% as skilled with any of them. You're either gonna suck with most forms if you play favorites, or suck slightly less with all of them. No weapon that isn't wielded with expert proficiency is going to be of any use in the world of Hunters, so Omni-weapons suck to begin with. Sure, variation and adaptability are great assets, but trying to justify it with that is like trying to bring a level 1 Pikachu to fight a level 20 Wartortle. Sure, he's weak to electricity, but that doesn't really mean shit when the difference in power is so large. I'm fine bringing a knife to a gunfight if they're an inexperienced and awful shot.  
I'll admit, though. The concept intrigued me enough that I broke down and read some of the stories to see if they were implemented in ways I might not have expected. They did, but that doesn't mean they were done well. Every instance I could find used it as "Deus-Ex-Machina-in-a-Can". The character runs into a problem? The weapon can change into something that will fix it! Losing a fight? No fear, Omni-Weapon is here! I mean, totally ignoring how logically terrible they are, that's BS on every artistic level too. Every conflict and obstacle is just a button away from being solved! You could chalk that up to stupid Mary Sues, but some of these OCs even interacted with one another in their stories, and those were just pitiful. The asshole with the omni-weapon played the part of that kid on the playground who always tried to pull "Dynamite" in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. Nothing about the idea works.

I finished the report ahead of schedule, which was nice. I'd run through my rounds one more time, then head home a little early. SEX had made it through half of the raw elements they planned to test after they recaptured Peggy. No reaction to any of them. The children were still fine, and Applied Sciences was now painting the lovely ashtrays they'd made.

 _Day 6; 5:10 PM- Chemical tests in-progress, yielding no results thus far. My own search also continues similarly._


	7. Light at the End of the Tunnel

That evening, I came home with a bit of a passenger. A small bit of plastic and metal in my pocket where I'd saved copies of the past few days' reports. I figured I could do some editing, and post my general findings on the fanfiction cliches, maybe with some notes on the sides. With any luck, it would help people make some higher-quality stuff.

Buuuuuuut I suppose I should have known better than that. I awoke to more than a few messages in response, all pretty much the same thing. "You just have no imagination", "You're stopping creativity", yada yada. That was pretty surprising, but mostly because I overestimated the internet. I didn't truly think that these communities could be so thoughtless, but in retrospect, I was getting these stupid ideas from them, and the communities obviously didn't see the flaws. Actually, I suppose it was that particular response that surprised me so much, not just that it was so negative.

I'm a scientist, I've dealt with mixed results. Sometimes experiments don't go as planned, but when it fails, I don't vapidly insist it's a success and say that anyone who contradicts me has no creativity or imagination. It's a failure, whether you see it as one or not, get over it. They're the ones that can't come up with better reasons for anything than "Because I said so", who can't make their ideas make sense, who apparently can't do anything interesting within boundaries or with any challenge, and I'm the one with no creativity because I told you about it?

Creativity requires challenge, it can't exist without it. It's about what can be done with what's available to you. It's about new, unique, and effective ways of doing things. Everything I'd talked about were tired, dime-a-dozen, ineffective ways of _pretending_ to do things. If there was any creativity involved, they'd at least be _new_ ways that didn't make sense. Creators would take a look at their collection of cookie cutters and at least think to expand it, if not avoid it. I don't think I've heard anything more foolish than how my expectations of creativity were anti-creativity.

I got the feeling that I was rapidly becoming a rather cynical critic. Guess I didn't really care, but I typed up my little mental rant, dressed it up a bit, and posted it up too along with my other ideas before heading off to work.

This time it was another typical day. The experiment coordinators had SEX with the chemists again, even though I wished they phrased it differently. They'd be going through the rest of their basic chemical tests on Peggy, checking for reactions that could help us determine the chemical makeup and structure of the creature. Applied Science was working on vases today, and… Actually there was a memo from management. I was surprised they knew how to write. Apparently they were not happy with our lack of progress this first week. If we couldn't even find something that hinted towards a promising avenue of research, they were threatening to restructure the lab's oversight and methods. "Restructure", an eleven-letter word! Perhaps I wasn't _quite_ giving management enough credit. Maybe this was a good thing, in fact. I completely overlooked the possibility of their impatience, they could just shut the whole project down if it doesn't yield results fast enough for their liking. We just need to continue on, and things will be alright.  
So! Next item on my agenda…. Semblances. God damn I really need to be more descriptive, even if I know what I meant. There were a lot of misconceptions about Aura and Semblance, it seemed. Attempts to manipulate or guide them weren't uncommon in our world's past. In ancient times, many families rose to power because of the semi-hereditary nature of Semblances. Occasionally warrior families would arrange marriages in the hopes of combining the two clans' Semblance aspects into something greater. The practice lasted a while, but didn't survive long after people realized that it wasn't doing any of them any good. The misconceptions that led to this era seemed to be repeating themselves in the word of fanfiction, and I certainly wanted no part in an attempted revival, so I had to set things straight.

Number one: Semblance stems from, and is fuelled by Aura. Occasionally, some can have negative side-effects, but they don't replace that basic cost. No Semblance can be infinite, or limitless, they're naturally bound by the user's Aura reserves. Flat-rate Semblances don't work for this same reason. I saw those a lot, "My OC can use his semblance for only 5 minutes", "Mine can only use his 5 times per day", come on. What sense does it make for the unique, tangible expression of your soul to say, "Oh, an arbitrary amount of time has passed? Can't work anymore", or, "You've used me twice, now you can't use me again until this other arbitrary 'reset' point", it just doesn't work. Sure, maybe you could use a Semblance for five minutes under certain conditions… But maybe for 10 if you only used it at half that potency, and two-and-a-half if you doubled it. A "Per-day" system makes no sense, because Aura regenerates constantly, your reserves don't just pop back up to full at midnight. Maybe when you're totally drained, it only takes a couple hours to charge back to full. Sure, it's an imperfect system; very generalized, but that's because it has to be, or are you going to try to tell me that you can quantify the manifestation of the soul? It's vague, but it makes sense, and it works.

Number two: Again, Semblances stem from Aura, which in turn stems from the Soul. This means that some ideas just don't work. Weaponized Semblances for example. What do you think it means if the manifestation if your soul can only be used to cause harm and destruction? Skill semblances are another one I saw, stuff like weapon wielding or even lock-picking, and they're the same thing. This isn't My Little Pony, the manifestation of your metaphysical being isn't a skill. Why would a Semblance even require specific other objects to manifest? What about the old standby of the Semblance to copy/negate other Semblances? Same deal. The expression of your soul is to rip off other peoples', or deny them? Real people just can't have souls like that.

Three: I'd be repeating myself again. So many Semblances are redundant and poorly considered, in the way they're used if not the way they function entirely. "My OC's semblance creates armor made from Aura to protect himself"... You mean like how Aura already does as one of its stock, non-Semblance functions? "My OC uses his pyrokinesis Semblance to burn his Human enemies alive"... Except that they also have their Aura to protect them, just as much as you're using yours in the Semblance to attack, and they have a significant home-team advantage as far as efficiency goes. You're always going to be on the losing side in that situation, short of an overwhelming advantage to begin with.  
This is why Semblance breeding fell off, and only lasted as long as it did because of confirmation bias. People thought they could breed planet-cracking superhumans, ignorant of the fact that Semblance is fundamentally limited by Aura. The one thing that's been made abundantly clear from that history is that the Semblance does not make the person. Quite the opposite, in fact. It all depends on how effectively and creatively it can be used. No Semblance is or could be truly better than any other.

Like the Faunus one, this was a pretty simple report that I could write on my own without extra research. Luckily it still took up almost the entire day to track down the sources and records, with a few supplementary papers on the topic referenced for good measure.

I didn't bother to check on a single thing before I left. I hoped something would go wrong, so there would be even more reason to cancel the project outright, and I'd get a sweet severance package. With any luck, this was one of my very last days of work.


	8. Number of Legs a Spider has

Day eight. The eighth day, the big 2^4. Number of protons in an Oxygen nucleus. How many legs does a spider have? Eightamundo. Quite possibly one of the last, if not _the_ last days I'd have to spend wasting away at my desk, inventing work for myself to fabricate some legitimacy and fill the time. I was expecting them to call a meeting just before lunch, then we'd all get to hear the good news.  
And that they did. I was so excited that I couldn't bring myself to do any work, so I spent the morning proofreading my reports. When they called the meeting I felt like a kid back in middle school, and this was like the assembly before summer vacation. You know, the one where they'd do the talent show or some other kind of special event? I never forgot those, mostly because they were so spectacularly awful. They were school talent shows, after all, so they couldn't reject any applicants. All the (relatively) good stuff was put at the end, so people wouldn't skip out early and miss the excitement of a pair of kids balancing a stick upright~! Damn those were terrible, I don't think I ever managed to make it to the end of one.  
My train of thought derailed just as the last of the scientists filed into the meeting room. While the dull roar of conversation subsided, the head supervisor- My Boss- Dr. Ter Borcht stood and straightened her glasses before reading from a clipboard.  
"As you're all surely aware, our financiers aren't very happy with the project's progress… I understand it's through no fault of our own, but regardless, that is the situation."  
She paused for effect, mostly met with quiet chuckling and expectant eyes filled with hope.  
"The project is being significantly downsized as a result, to about half its current size-"  
Without waiting for her to finish, the room broke into applause, cheers, and a couple overly-elaborate secret handshakes. It was a good minute or two before everyone settled down.

The Dr. cleared her throat before adding meekly, "... They've also hired a new specialist GM, who will be here by tomorrow to begin personally evaluating and directing our 'research' here"

That bit of news got a far more lukewarm response. She went over a couple of other minor announcements, but no one really paid much attention. Everyone was eagerly waiting for news on which half they were in… Or maybe the Applied Sciences division just had their work in the kiln and didn't want to let it go too long, I really didn't know.  
When we were let out, I went right back to my desk. I couldn't help but spend a few moments in a hopeful haze, but then I remembered I still had to get some work done. Nearly half the work day had already been wasted, so I'd have to pick an easy one. I checked my list… And it seemed like there were some misconceptions about Dust. Couldn't get much simpler than that, I could just check online like these fanfiction writers seemed incapable of doing, although I already knew a fair bit myself.

Dust comes in four Primary types: Red, Cyan, Yellow, and Green; AKA Fire, Ice, Electricity, and Wind/Air. These are the only types that occur naturally. Every other Dust type is made by mixing and refining other Dust types in combination.- And just to preempt any stupid ideas people may get, it's not the sort of thing that can be done in the field. It takes some major industrial equipment to combine Dust types, it's not like you can just throw red and blue into a bowl, stir them around and get purple. I can't quite say what the process is for combining Dust, the Dust companies guard that particular facet of their operation very closely, they don't want any more competitors, or civilians figuring out ways of making their own at home.

This means there are between a dozen, and an infinite number of Dust types depending on how exactly combinations work. If red and blue make purple, and red and yellow make orange... Will combining purple and orange make an entirely new type, or will it be the same as combining red, blue, and yellow all in one from the get-go? I can't say. Does quantity or proportion matter? Will a mix of three-parts red and one-part blue make a different shade of purple with new properties? Not a clue. Does it even work like normal mixing colours? Will red and blue actually give you purple, or will it give you chartreuse? I mean, I know there's both white and black Dust. Theoretically only one of those should be possible if it works like any kind of typical colour mixing. I don't know any of it, but I think it's fair to give the benefit of a doubt and say that there are an infinite number of Dust Types.

But no matter what kind it is, all Dust is an energy propellant. By a pretty literal definition in fact, it propels specific types of energy, and in specific ways depending on the type. It means that Dust can theoretically do a lot… But nothing to do with biology, emotions, minds, souls, etc. I mean come on, think. If Dust could do that kind of stuff, that would be the norm, not fire, ice, and electricity. When I was twelve and my dog fell sick, we would have popped over to the store and got some Dust to heal him right away. My mother wouldn't have needed to go to the ICU last year when that car hit her. They both would have survived, and with the help of nothing more than some powder. It's certainly a nice idea, but thought number one should have told you why it was bullshit. We'd have have genetically engineered super monsters. We'd be using Life Dust to resurrect Remnant's greatest warriors from all of time, or spray Death Dust like pesticide and eradicate the Grimm. Do you think there might be a reason that we don't do any of that…?  
I think I saw a few people who realized this problem and tried to address it by making what he called an "AU" fanfiction. One trip to Urbandictionary later, I can say I applaud the effort, but the execution is still awful. Sure, you could just set things in a world where this kind of stuff exists, you can do this with anything. "In this AU, Avian Faunus with birds on their wings work", then you don't have to worry about making sense, those issues will be replaced by how lazy and uncreative that is. However you still need to account for these things in the story. I saw tons of stories with the most incredible, impossible Dust types and devices, and a Mary Sue teenager is the only one who bothers to use it. That's just disgustingly lazy worldbuilding. If you want to make an AU with this stuff, _make it with that stuff,_ not just the one character.

I filed my report… Everything but the bits of fanfiction commentary, anyway. I was just finishing up when I noticed an email notification, presumably having been there for quite a while, awaiting my attention. Of course, they'd contact everyone privately about if they were staying or not. I'd been so distracted that I hardly put a thought into the news. I clicked… "We value your contribution to this project", Yada yada… "Sorry to say that we're downsizing", etc….

"...But rest assured, Dr. Batchelder, that you've been selected to stay. As the only supervisor to remain, you will be taking over the role of head supervisor."


	9. The Crimson Sail

Did I do something wrong? Now that I think about it, I forgot to file day seven's log. Could that be it? No, no, though I did, management didn't think it was a punishment to stay here. If anything, that would be a big reason to let me go. Were they so happy with my reports of nothingness that they just had to keep me on? Maybe Ter Borcht left me some kind of recommendation. Could she have disliked me so much? I don't think I did anything to deserve that, we hardly talked at all. She didn't exactly invite me out for coffee or talk to me much either, so it's not like I snubbed her.

What did I do to deserve a place here? The place where people thought it made sense to capture the ancient, soulless enemy of all Remnant's sentient life? Subjecting them, and children to horrible experiments in attempts to merge the two, all in the hopes of engineering a hybrid creature. one with abilities that _neither Grimm nor Humans already have_. So what if we succeeded? Even if it was possible, the best-case scenario is that we make something vastly inferior to our Hunters, or even some of the androids on the market. Why, why, why?

I spent nearly an hour facedown in the sink that morning. I think I went in there to shave, but then reality set in. I was already two hours late for work, and hadn't even left yet. I didn't care about the money, or leaving on terms equitable enough to get a good recommendation anymore. I ate breakfast on to the lab, spilling plenty of milk and cereal all over myself. I suppose I must have gotten some weird looks from people on the train, but I didn't notice. I just threw the bowl on my desk when I got there.

At least I wasn't the only one in such a terrible and apathetic mood. Those of us who remained were all shuffling around like zombies, looking more like we belonged beneath an underpass than a world-leading laboratory. Everyone else still had the strength and resolve to move around, but not me. I sat staring blankly into the blackness of my computer screen, watching them glide around behind me in the reflection.

Hunger finally drove me half-out of my stupor, and as I pushed my chair out, I noticed a note on the corner of my desk. Who knows how long it had been there, and I can't say I particularly cared. It was from that new General Manager they mentioned, saying he was interested in my work and wanted to talk to me personally. With that, I headed off to the cafeteria to get some food. I ordered the soup this time, but I really can't tell you if it was any good, I guess I just wasn't paying attention. It was some type that started with a P, I think. I sat for twenty minutes looking into the empty bowl trying to remember.

I must have gotten up at some point, because I found myself heading back to my desk. For some strange reason, I caught notice of one of the doors on the way back. It was the GM's. Ter Borcht's name had been replaced with another in what looked like blue crayon. It was difficult to make out, "Crimson Sail" or something like that. I guess I'd kept him waiting long enough. If I failed to show up entirely, they'd probably just assume I didn't get the memo and forgive me. Better never than late here, and I was going for the shittier option.

He looked about like what I'd expect the project directors would hire. Stupid blue hair, stupid eyepatch, stupid sunglasses over the stupid eyepatch in which I could see the stupid reflection of Pac-Man on his stupid computer's stupid screen. He jumped up when he saw me walk in, and ran over to me. He looked over me very carefully, seemingly for my nametag at first, but then ran his fingers through my hair and felt up my Hindquarters. I can't say it didn't have the immediate effect of bringing me to my senses.  
"Are you a Faunus?" he asked  
"I… Uhhh… What?"  
"No ears or tail. It's usually one of those but I want to be sure"  
"No"

He examined me for a few moments more and then gave up. "Oh well, what's up?"

"You… Wanted to see me, sir?"

"I did?"

"... Batchelder?"

"Oh yeah, I'm having some trouble here, and it seems like you're the perfect man for the job", He grabbed my arm and dragged me around his desk. He closed Pac-man and pulled up what looked like…. A blog?

"You see, I looked over your reports, and I'm very impressed. I'd love it if you could help me with my fanfiction"


	10. Redundancy

Was this really what it had all come to? My new boss was asking me to be the fact-checker for his fanfiction. That was real, it's a thing that just happened. How the hell can I respond to that? It's nothing too different from what I was already doing, but…. What's going on?  
This was just a bit too much.  
I remembered in high school, I'd once pulled an all-nighter watching old sci-fi movies. When I went to school the next day, a group of students I didn't know greeted and hugged me. For a few minutes as I wandered around trying to find my friends, I was thoroughly convinced I'd been transported into an alternate reality in the night. That I had been transported into a world where everything was different except for me. Some part of me knew the idea was just too much to consider, but not very much. That bit of my mind could only summon the strength to keep the question ringing in my head, "Is this real?".

Thoughts of that morning ran through my head in an instant. At first I thought this was the same sort of situation; that my addled brain was simply doing its best to remind me to cling to my senses. It may well have been, but I think I gleaned something much more important from the memory…

I knew it was real all along, and I certainly didn't need to be reminded of that. The significance lay in the simple act of questioning what I thought I knew. The answers didn't matter, but it could never be a good thing to become complacent in assumptions. Answers and advancement come when you challenge yourself, others, or ideas. This is the case in everything, from a sugared up high schooler who watches too much sci-fi, to art, to science.

This was now my reality, so I must adapt. I need to take my own advice. This isn't what I set out to do, but I could do it. I could even enjoy doing it, and I would keep getting paid to do it. Instead of moping around because I want something that doesn't work, I can do something I want that does work, something I might even like more.

Perhaps this was a stupid, overblown way to reach such a simple conclusion, especially since it's exactly something I've talked about before, but… Well, I guess I've talked about it before for a reason. If it was so simple and obvious, other people would realize it too. I'd have had a lot less shitty fanfiction to sift through if they'd realized it. Glass houses and all that.

I guess I'd been standing there in introspection for at least a few minutes, but the blue-haired pirate with no concept of personal space must have spent the whole time awaiting my reply. His stupid eye hadn't lost a single stupid sparkle, his stupid lips were still quivering in stupid anticipation. God this guy is a weirdo. I sighed and threw up my arms.  
"Sure… Sure whatever, I'll look it over, just move aside."  
He stifled a screech and pulled out his chair for me, then took up position over my shoulder. It was Hunter fanfiction, like most of it seemed to be, but before delving further into the actual writing, I took a look at the character profiles. I tried to keep myself from cringing, but if any of my impulsive recoils made it past my defenses, Mr. Sail didn't seem to notice.  
To his credit, it looked like he'd already taken my other reports to heart. There were some obvious points where information was cut or edited, and I dare not imagine what was in place before. Everything else was still pretty lackluster, though I presume it meshed with reality much better. The biggest problems… It was hard to admit, but they were pretty nebulous, _je ne sais quoi._ It would take more time than I was ready to spend at his desk to address those, but luckily one thing stood out pretty well, a problem that seems to run rampant among poorly-thought-out characters.  
"I can tell you right now that a lot of what you have here is pretty redundant, and that's not a good sign"  
"What do you mean?" He asked, resting his head on my shoulder.  
"Look at this, here" I pointed to the screen. The characters all had a list of likes and dislikes, which were always particularly big offenders on the redundancy front. So much of it was totally pointless, or went without saying. The main character's page said he liked home-cooked food, chicken, his friends and family, and winning. His list of dislikes was "bees, wasps, losing his friends, death, boredom, and discrimination".  
Well call the fucking presses, such unique and noteworthy information! I can see the headlines now, "LOCAL MAN DISLIKES DEATH!", it'll make the national news, I tell you. Next week, I'll leak that he also likes his friends. The world will be abuzz with how amazing this person is.  
Give me a calendar so I can circle today, for it will go down in history.  
Most of what was on the lists just goes without saying. What little couldn't be safely assumed just had no place on a list like this. If he hates bees and discrimination, that should come out in the story. It's not important enough to put in the character's bio. Of course, this was just a problem in the likes and dislikes, but it was an easy way to tell there were probably problems elsewhere. It was just the most obvious way to tell that the writer had a problem with knowing what information was worth mentioning. Characters like this typically came loaded with tons of padding, and miscellaneous information that didn't contribute much of anything, while skipping out on more meaningful information, and a quick skim confirmed that. I could easily cut out more than half of this OC's page, and so little would change that I doubt Crimson would even notice himself. It was a case where quantity was prioritized over quality.  
I carefully explained it all to him, and he seemed to grasp to concept alright. I was actually surprised at how well he understood, maybe I wasn't giving him enough credit.  
But on the other hand, he wrote his name on the door with crayon, and molested me the second we met.


End file.
